Star Odyssey

Chapter 4355: Inner Aspect

As Lu Yin teleported closer to Manifest City, he found that it was truly colossal. The city sprawled across the cosmos, though it was far smaller than a megaverse.

It was difficult for civilizations to find other civilizations in the Aevum Inch, let alone discover a city like this mirebound artifact.

Even so, over the course of so many years, some civilization or creature must have accidentally run into Manifest City. What had happened to them?

Che had not said anything, and Lu Yin had forgotten to ask. Presumably, their fates were similar to the creatures that Che had thrown inside the city.

There was a gate to Manifest City, but it was closed. Lu Yin circled the city, but he found no other entrance; he could only use that main gate. He could enter by pressing against that gate, and he could leave by doing the same thing.

To be cautious, it would be best not to go in alone. He would send someone else to look around first.

With this thought, Lu Yin released Master Qing Cao, Kang Tian, and Ba Yue. His eyes swept over them before finally settling onto Ba Yue. "Please go into the city and look around."

Ba Yue and the others stared at Manifest City with baffled expressions. Kang Tian instinctively moved back a bit, feeling that something was off.

Ba Yue looked from the city to Lu Yin. "What is this place?"

Lu Yin smiled at her. "I don’t know, which is why I’m asking you, Senior, to go in and explore it."

Regardless of their relative levels of strength, Ba Yue was far, far older than Lu Yin, so it was not inappropriate for him to call her senior.

She refused. "I’m not going."

She was not foolish. Lu Yin did not want to go in himself but wanted her to instead. Clearly, he wanted someone to scout ahead for him.

Lu Yin frowned. "Senior, you seem to always go against what I say. That isn’t good."

Ba Yue glared at Lu Yin. "No matter what, I am a human Immortal. I did not follow you to the Human Trio to throw my life away. If it is for human civilization, I will do anything without hesitation, that I promise you. However, I refuse to serve as your scout."

Lu Yin met her gaze, staring at Ba Yue intently while slowly asking, "How is He Xiao doing now?"

A tremor ran through Ba Yue’s body as she stared at Lu Yin. "What do you mean?"

"I took you away from Crimson Starshade and away from Hong Xia. That is the first point. My second is that I crippled He Xiao. You have already gotten revenge, haven’t you? I won’t ask how He Xiao is doing now, but tell me, have you gotten your vengeance?"

Ba Yue fell silent.

"Fine. I can accept this refusal, though I hope that you won’t refuse me again next time." After saying that, Lu Yin’s attention moved past Ba Yue to land on Kang Tian. "Please go in."

The snail bristled. "I am not going."

Lu Yin frowned. "The Trio is gaining more and more Immortals now, so being short one or two doesn’t make much of a difference."

Kang Tian protested in a bitter tone, "No matter what, I have already helped you."

"Then help me one more time." Lu Yin’s voice grew cold. It was not that he was cruel, but rather that this was the way of survival. Kang Tian had abandoned its own species to hide within his human civilization in order to survive. Since it wanted to hide in their civilization, the snail had to pay a price. Just spitting out colored-glass was far from enough.

In the end, beneath Lu Yin’s stare, Kang Tian approached Manifest City’s gate and pressed against it. The snail then vanished inside.

Once Kang Tian had gone in, Master Qing Cao asked, "What is this place, exactly?"

Ba Yue also looked at Lu Yin. He clasped his hands behind his back. "The Fifth Rampart’s mirebound artifact: Manifest City."

Both Immortals were shocked. "A mirebound artifact?"

"Manifest City?"

Lu Yin looked at Ba Yue. "It seems that you have heard of Manifest City."

Master Qing Cao was shocked by the fact that an entire city was a mirebound artifact, while Ba Yue was startled by the name of Manifest City.

She stared blankly at the mirebound artifact. "I once happened to hear Ji He mention it. He said that, if the Fifth Rampart’s Manifest City still existed, there would be nothing to fear from any civilization in the entire cosmos, that it is the strongest defensive mirebound artifact. I never thought that this could be it."

Ji He said that too? Lu Yin’s eyes lit up. It seemed that the legend of Manifest City was genuine. The remaining question was whether the city before him was truly Manifest City.

Master Qing Cao walked toward the city’s gates. "Senior, what are you doing?"

"Since this mirebound artifact is a relic of our human civilization, it should be us humans who scout it."

Lu Yin was impressed. "You are becoming more and more magnanimous, Senior. Unfortunately, I don’t know if this is the real one or not."

His back still to Lu Yin, Master Qing Cao continued to approach the gate. "I know. If you were certain that it is real, you would not have sent that snail to scout it. You possess at least that much responsibility. Still, we cannot allow a snail scout on behalf of humanity. Your life is critically important to our civilization, but mine is not."

After speaking, the man placed his hand upon the gate and pressed against it, vanishing inside.

Master Qing Cao had always been hard to define. He could be called a traitor, but he had also sacrificed everything for the Spirit Nidus’s sake. On the other hand, it was hard to not consider him a traitor, given that he was responsible for Mi Jin’s death.

Everyone knew his reasons, yet they still could not forgive him.

He did not need anyone’s forgiveness. He walked his own path, and his path had always been clear to him. Regardless of right or wrong, regardless of the outcome, he would continue walking it with determination.

That was precisely why Lu Yin felt comfortable bringing Master Qing Cao along. Lu Yin knew that the man absolutely did not want anything to happen to him. So long as Lu Yin lived, the Trio would remain safe.

For that, Qing Cao could pay any price.

Lu Yin closed his eyes and quietly waited.

Beside him, Ba Yue looked at him and then at Manifest City as she also waited in silence.

Although Lu Yin had closed his eyes, he had opened Heaven's Sight. After it absorbed one of the Ten-Eyed Divine Crow’s eyes, Lu Yin had gained the corresponding abilities, such as being able to see anyone who was looking at him, ignoring distance.

He was testing to see if Che was watching him.

It appeared that the Immortal really had gone far away. Lu Yin stood beside Manifest City for months, but aside from Ba Yue, no one else looked at him.

Eventually, Master Qing Cao emerged again, drawing the attention of both Lu Yin and Ba Yue.

There was an odd expression on the man’s face as he exited Manifest City, as though recalling something or having encountered something unbelievable.

"Senior, how was it?" Lu Yin asked.

Master Qing Cao looked at him, but did not speak for a moment. Just then, Kang Tian also emerged with a heavy breath. "I finally escaped! I almost couldn’t get out. I was scared to death. Those kids were really annoying!"

Lu Yin asked curiously, "What happened?"

Kang Tian glanced at Qing Cao, not knowing that the man had also gone in. Seeing Lu Yin, Ba Yue, and Qing Cao all staring at it, the snail answered in a bitter tone, "I- my cultivation disappeared when I went in, and I turned into a little snail."

"A little snail?" Ba Yue blinked in surprise.

Lu Yin stared at Kang Tian. "You’re a snail... and you became a snail?"

"A little snail. Tiny, only about the size of a human fingernail.

"I became a little snail the moment I went in and was stuck to a wall. Some children saw me and threw stones at me. If I wasn’t luckily already near the wall of the city gate, I wouldn’t have been able to slowly crawl down from the top of the wall to get close to the gate, and I would have been stoned to death.

"That was too dangerous! I am certain that, if I was killed by stones, I would have died for real. Mr. Lu, this place is too dangerous. You can’t go in. It’s a trap!"

Lu Yin and Ba Yue looked toward Master Qing Cao. The man slowly stated, "I became a xuanwu."[1]

Ba Yue was bewildered. A xuanwu?

Lu Yin froze, then remembered. A xuanwu?

"You became a turtle?"

"A xuanwu," Master Qing Cao emphasized.

Lu Yin understood: a turtle.

Xuanwu was an Earth name for a certain divine beast. Qing Cao had stayed in the Tianyuan for so long that it was normal for him to have visited Earth, especially since Lu Yin himself had stayed there. Using the term “xuanwu” sounded far better than saying that he had been turned into a turtle. It was certainly a response that Qing Cao would come up with.

Fine, you were a xuanwu.

But was a turtle the essence of Qing Cao’s being? He had always wanted to protect the Spirit Nidus, which did fit the traits of a turtle withdrawing its head and ignoring everything. There was nothing to see, as it focused solely on preserving itself.

Lu Yin asked, "You weren’t stoned?"

Master Qing Cao glanced at Kang Tian. "No. The people there have some respect for tur- xuanwus, and they allowed me to crawl to the city gate."

"Is that all?"

"That is all."

"What about insights? Did you learn anything about this city?"

"No. However, while there are humans within it, there are no cultivators. It is a city of ordinary people. When we went in, our cultivation vanished. If we were killed by the people there, we might truly die."

Lu Yin looked at Kang Tian. The snail also shook its head. It had gleaned nothing. One of the two had become a little snail and nearly been stoned to death, while the other had become a turtle. There was nothing more that either had learned.

Lu Yin understood then why Che had never been able to take control of Manifest City, despite so many eons passing. Perhaps he was just as confused and had not been able to make any sense of Manifest City, or perhaps he understood it but could not accomplish what was necessary.

The greatest danger in Manifest City were the humans who lived there. If they had stoned the snail or turtle to death, then Kang Tian and Qing Cao would have truly died.

It almost sounded like a joke; could an Immortal truly die so easily?

This was Manifest City, a guardian artifact. Even Che, who was considered powerful even within Obscura, acknowledged it as the defensive mirebound artifact with the strongest known defenses. It was truly special.

It was now Lu Yin’s turn. What would he become? He would not simply die, right?

He felt rather nervous as he raised a hand and moved closer to the gate.

Ba Yue watched from behind. She hesitated for a moment and then also approached the gate.

An Immortal would not be scared away by a city. She dared to enter it. She did not believe Kang Tian’s claim that being stoned to death inside would mean actually dying. How could an Immortal die so easily?

If she could gain control of such a mirebound artifact, her status would surely soar, and she would no longer be someone whom Lu Yin could casually kidnap.

Thinking of this, determination filled her eyes. She touched the gate and went in at the same time as Lu Yin.

They were surrounded by a flash of black radiance, as though time was shifting. When Lu Yin opened his eyes again, he was surrounded by incredibly tall buildings.

A shadow fell over him as he looked up in horror. It was a foot. A gigantic foot was falling, dirt still clinging to the sole. No, it was not the buildings that were tall, but rather him who was tiny.

He hurriedly dodged and only barely avoided being stepped on. Looking back up, he saw pedestrians walking by. He was on a very busy street, with multiple vendors calling out their wares. Shops lined both sides of the street, and the closest one to him was an inn. There were many people coming and going, and from time to time, the scent of food wafted out.

No matter how he looked at it, he was in a perfectly ordinary mortal city.

However, Lu Yin himself had become an ant.

An ant. Was that his inner aspect? His essence?

Lu Yin examined his body. He was an ant: fast and strong. While small, they were able to carry objects far heavier than themselves, and they were especially skilled at working together. Countless ants could devour anything when united.

It really did resemble him.

Dust billowed toward him as pedestrians hurried past. The dust that their feet kicked up was like a sky-covering storm to Lu Yin. He quickly hid in a corner. Suddenly, he was struck by a sense of dread. He looked around and saw an approaching child that was carrying a kettle. Not good!

He knew what the child was about to do, and Lu Yin immediately fled through the cracks between the paving stones.

1. Xuanwu: a mythological Black Tortoise, one of the Four Symbols in Chinese cosmology, often depicted as a turtle entwined with a snake. ☜